


Climax, Resolution, Denounment

by tobinlaughing



Series: Acting Classes [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Awesome Jane Foster, Evil Darcy AU, Evil Darcy Lewis, Gen, Natasha Romanoff - Freeform, darcy lewis AU, past major character death, spy vs spy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So long as there is one pretty girl left on the stage, the professional undertakers may hold up their burial of the theatre."--GJ Nathan</p>
            </blockquote>





	Climax, Resolution, Denounment

In the end, it isn't Natasha or Jane who finds her, and for that, she's pathetically grateful. The strobing lights and cavalcade of black SUVs that surround the base of the building she's hiding in mean, for a few moments, safety, sanctuary, a fair trial at least. When SHIELD is out in force, there is no room in anyone's PR campaign for excessive force. 

Emma shivers and edges away from the broken window, knowing she's been made and not caring. It's been a long five years—only five? Seems like five lifetimes. Her star is no longer ascendant—not with AIM, not with HAMMER, not with any of the organizations that've put her on the playbill for the majority of her career. She is strictly C-list now. 

The Gard du Lyon operation was the beginning of the end; she should have known, being the one to predict (albeit narrowly) Thor's incursion and the disruption of an otherwise non-fatal op. That she made contact with a former asset was forgivable, but the manhunt that Jane Foster sponsored afterwards was almost a textbook disaster for an agent of her caliber. This time plastic surgery had been unavoidable: rhinoplasty, breast reduction, chin implant, even reshaping of her eyes, all in the hopes that she could fool the facial-recognition softwares SHIELD had running and get herself back in the game. AIM had paid for the surgeries, of course, but even after her recovery was complete she wasn't placed back in regular rotation. 

"Your involvement with the Avengers Initiative has made you a liability," her handler told her bluntly as he shrugged into his Kevlar vest to accompany his new operative. "Even with a new face, your pet doctor has an Asgardian god—two Asgardian gods—on the lookout for you. Do you think that's gonna go away with a boob job? No, sweetheart," he concluded, not unkindly, checking his hair in the locker mirror, "my guess is, you're out to pasture on this one."

"Of course you can jump in the analyst pool," her SO hadn't looked directly at her, instead keeping her face pointed in Emma's direction and her eyes on the computer monitor as she tapped out another encrypted email. "Of course you're still valuable to us. We've made an investment in you, Ems, and we're not going to turn down repeated returns on that investment. But the nature of your dividends--" and here was another furtive glance at her remade figure, as though she'd succeeded at more than a decade in the spy game on nothing but her looks--"are different now. Why don't you cash in some of that vacation time and when you're back, I'll have a line of information for you to analyze. A nice quiet office gig. No more explosions at your back. All downhill from here."

Retirement from the field. A slow death in a cubicle. She'd outlived her usefulness. She'd just turned thirty-one. That afternoon she'd sat for an hour at a cafe table in Midtown, analyzing the contours and lines of her new face in her compact mirror. Every new fold of skin, each irreversible little wrinkle, all the new planes of her new face: each was failure scrawled across her skin in exquisite script. 

So yes, she'd called in some of the hundreds and hundreds of hours of accumulated vacation time, with no real plan of how or where to use them. She thought about heading to the Carribean or back to the south of France, but the plans were hazy and detailless and distracting. Enough so that she didn't notice the slight lag in her workstation terminal when she clicked 'submit'. A long spiderweb-line of code spooled itself off in another direction as her vacation request was received and automatically approved, and at around 2 am the bots melted the lock on her safehouse-apartment door and tried to kill her.

They were Foster-tech, not Stark-tech; that she could tell from a glance. Stark's bots were—with only two sentimental exceptions—smooth, sleekly-curved and articulated, the showy results of years of unbudgeted tinkering, improvement and redesign. No, these had Jane stamped all over them: blocky, functional, heavy-duty and angular. Two multi-legged floor-walkers had exposed wiring on their undersides and open charge bays on top, presumably for the four hovering, needle-and-scalpel-bearing flyers that whizzed at her from all directions and angles as she tried to escape. Despite their inelegant flight patterns the little hoverbots were tenacious; Emma suspected they tracked her with simple shape-and-heat recognition, latching reliably onto her as the only living thing in the apartment. Their whirring rotors ripped easily through the blanket she flung over all four; by the time she'd slammed the bedroom door on them the floor-walkers had clanked up from behind, gripping her ankles in their merciless insectile pincers and sending her tumbling to the floor as the hoverbots burned through the hollow bedroom door. Kicking one ankle over the other, she managed to smash one of the floor-walkers with the other and scramble to her feet, snatching her service pistol from the coffee table in the living room; but she was rushed, and panicked, and her aim was off: four shots completely failed to take down any of the deadly hoverbots. 

Training took over and she sought an exit, graceful or not: but the bots' entrance had reduced the deadbolt on the apartment door to slag, welding the safety chain in place and freezing the door partially open but not far enough for her to wiggle through. Breaking the mechanism off the door would take too long (and now, she grabbed the frying pan off the stove to fend off the hoverbots, whacking one of them with a satisfying crunch and sending it clattering into the sink) and good god damn those needles were sharp--

The three remaining bots' tracking software had to take a moment to recalibrate when Emma flung herself through the fire-escape window; though they were following closely, the change in ambient temperature from the apartment to the hot New York night overwhelmed their sensors for just a moment—long enough for Emma to snatch the bug-out bag from its hiding place in the window box and scramble down the first flight of stairs. She hit the street running (barefoot, not caring about the broken glass in the alleyway) and managed to make it out to the still-busy street by the time the hoverbots turned the corner. 

They lost her shape and heat signature amongst too many other similar targets, and turned back: soft-hearted Dr Foster's programming did not allow them the extreme prejudice necessary to eliminate Emma in a crowd. Emma smirked and caught her breath at the newsstand across the street, telling herself if their roles had been reversed, she'd've programmed the bots to merciless efficiency, no matter the collateral cost. The bravado helped stave off the post-adrenaline nausea and shakes that marked the beginning of her life on the run. 

More bots followed, as well as human agents, snipers, and manufactured everyday disasters: Emma stopped trying to discern whether or not this traffic accident or that deer running across the road were designed to kill her or just accidents of fate. Foster had all of SHIELD and part of Asgard on her side; there was no limit to what she could do to Emma from a distance or up close. For nearly six months she thought she'd thrown their trail when she moved in to an isolated cabin in northern Minnesota, but the arrival of hunting season brought a party of suspiciously well-armed 'hunters' to her door. Their surprise was not well-feigned; Emma left a pile of day-glo orange bodies spackled in scarlet in the middle of the cabin's main room, hoping that would be enough of a message to Foster and her SHIELD contacts. 

It wasn't. She burned through old identities and long-gone characters faster than she could develop new ones and never felt more than a half-step ahead of her pursuers. She was sure Foster and Romanov were working together, which meant the rest of the Avengers Initiative weren't far behind. 

And now, Berlin: a condemned building off the Hansastrasse, huddling near a broken window in the hopes that she would be indistinguishable from the homeless anarchists who squatted there. She hadn't dared try to clear the building and establish a safe perimeter. All she has the energy to do is hide.   
Of course they clear the building for her: SHIELD has no interest in international incidences that make headlines, for all their increased visibility and functionality in the wake of the London incident. When she hears boots crunch on the floor of the doorless room, she sticks her bare hands out of her coat-sleeves and smiles at the agents in their dark glasses. 

"Bist du Emma?" a woman asks, her pistol trained on Emma's chest despite the gentleness of the question. Red laser dots paint Emma's coat and face. She loves the dramatic tension in the air. "Anworte, bitte, ja oder nein."

"Ja, bin ich sie." A pair of tactical-geared agents approach her from either side and she is passive as they briskly pat her down, turning out every one of the pockets in her coat and pants before one of them takes a set of zip-tie cuffs from his belt. "Komm bitte mit uns, gnädige Frau. Unsere Kommandantwünsche, zum mid dir du sprechen." Emma's German doesn't reach that far—though her accent has been almost flawless these last three days in the country—but she gets the gist of the request, and lets them lead her out of the building. Training and instinct are screaming at her to kick out knees, yank on weapon straps, steal at least a knife or a service pistol and make a stand, maybe her last stand, her swan-song, her death scene—but she lets a feeling that is very close to relief wash over her automatic responses, because now that they have her, she is safe enough. 

The man waiting outside to hand her into an SUV is unassuming, quiet and efficient-looking: the famous Agent Coulson, she presumes, of whom she—Darcy--heard so much. Back when she was Darcy, and Darcy was with Barton, and Barton was alive. Gods, so long ago. Darcy felt like ancient history, a Greek tragedy. Medea, maybe. Or not. 

"You put on a good race," Coulson remarks, almost casually, as Emma crawls awkwardly into the backseat of the SUV. He climbs in after her, along with the tac-vested gun-wielding agents who searched her, and adds, "I have been requested to move you outside of Germany before we conclude this little production. We'll be at the airstrip in approximately twenty minutes. Once we're in the air I'll remove the cuffs, but please try not to cause a disturbance until then." Emma smiles vaguely at him. It's been a day and a half since she last grabbed a bite to eat and a couple more since her last shower. She's shaking again with the aftermath of adrenaline, but the tremors are intermittent and hard to focus on now that the climax has passed. Still she observes Coulson, this SHIELD legend, the man Barton grieved for. He is good at quiet. So was Barton, but in a different way: Clint's quiet could be deadly, like a taut bowstring. Coulson's is an inert quiet, like a worry-stone. Darcy didn't mesh well with Coulson when Clint introduced them, but it wasn't a conflicted relationship. Emma had simply built Darcy as a louder, shallower personality; Coulson's polish reflected the depth of his years. 

At the airstrip there is a plane: a flying office building, it seems, through which the armed agents quick-march her and lock her in a padded room at the very center. She sees four faces she can't identify—all surprisingly young and remarkably photogenic—and one she recognizes with a kind of distant thrill: Agent May, over whom Darcy gushed and developed a quick and hard two-week-long girl-crush that Clint laughed at and nursed her through. May does not glare, or frown, or disapprove; she simply registers Darcy's altered face, matches it in her impressive memory, and returns to filing their flight plan with no more concern than she would show to anyone else. Darcy's disappointment sours her girl-crush heartbreak a little more. The muscular young Ops agent is placed outside of the one door to padded room to guard it, and after their takeoff a tray with a sandwich, salad, and carton of milk is slotted through the door. Emma is famished, and despite Darcy's loudly-professed dislike of salads, she clears each of the plates and sucks the milk down. 

No one comes in to question her or give her a flight sit-rep. Emma doesn't expect it from the famed Agent Coulson, but Darcy muses wistfully about how talking to another person would be nice.   
Her internal clock tells her that they are in the air for two and a half hours before a bump and rumble announces the plane's touchdown. Two and a half hours from Berlin could mean many places on the Continent. They might be in England. Probably not Asia or the Middle East, unless May has managed to push the flying bus' speed capabilities past what they should be. But real fear races through her and Darcy plants her feet at the bottom of the ramp when she tastes the air and sees the silhouette of the city beneath the leaden sky: they've landed in Moscow. 

Russia can only mean a very few things, and the tranquility leaves Emma in a rush, fear flooding in and drowning her heart. Coulson catches her elbow, even though the Ops agent has no problem handling her on his own: "Up you get, Miss Lewis," he says, then catches himself. "My apologies," he amends smoothly, and now Emma can hear the sharp ice in his voice: "You still look so much like Darcy. I just forgot who you really are."

She doesn't exactly struggle, but it's no easy task to get her into the waiting SUV. Darcy would have been inclined to kick and bite, but Emma can't even command her muscle memory any more—not that any of the SHIELD agents are dumb enough to wear an accesible weapon within her reach. Darcy is perversely pleased to see they've learned something from her time among them, at least. The drive is short, away from the city, and when they pull up to a cement-block building Coulson is the only one who gets out with her. He sends a short text as they stand outside the metal door, and a few seconds later the lock clicks. He pushes it open, pushes Emma inside, and pulls the door shut behind her. The slam echoes in the darkened space seemingly forever. 

"Darcy."

Jane's voice, five quick footsteps, and a bright flare of pain as the physicist slaps her across the face. She tries to shake off the sting as her eyes adjust to the dimness. "Nice to see you too, Jane."

"You have a hell of a lot to answer for." Jane has changed: she's learned about physical outlets for her rage. Her hair is shorter, the muscles in her neck and shoulders are more clearly defined even through her habitual flannel shirt and t-shirt. Now she holds herself like a fighter, or one who can fight: the lab-rat nerd is gone. Jane would never make an operative, but she's not the genius in need of protection who first hired Darcy. 

"Dr Foster, we had an agreement," Natasha slinks into view, pistol at the ready, Widow-bites glowing blue on her wrists. In contrast to Jane Natasha hasn't changed at all: her hair is still red, still long, and her eyes still crackle murderously in the same way that both terrified and enthralled Darcy. She cocks her gun and levels it at Emma's heart. "A yes or no will suffice: are you the woman who called herself Darcy Lewis while under the employ of Dr Jane Foster?"

Ah, Natasha: rules were made to be followed before they were made to be broken. "Yes, I am."

"And are you the AIM agent who murdered SHIELD Agent Clint Barton?"

Clint. Horny, muscly, sweaty, goofy Clint. She sighs. "Yes, I...I did."

"What did you do with the data you stole from me?" This from Jane, who is careful to stay out of Natasha's firing line but is almost spitting mad, despite Nat's commands. Emma's eyes flick from one woman to the other, and Nat quirks an eyebrow; she takes that as permission to answer the question. 

"The information mined from your projects, and from Stark, was surrendered to AIM at the time of its acquisition," Darcy answers slowly and carefully, trying not to move anything but her face. "Much of it went into the project databanks, but once Stark took down Killian that line of inquiry was suspended. I don't know what happened to the data after the Gare du Lyon incident."

"AIM cut you loose?" Nat asks quietly.

"Your pursuit made me too much of a risk," Darcy chances a shrug. "AIM couldn't operate with two Asgardian gods looking over its prized agent's shoulders."

Jane snorts. "Thor and Heimdall didn't have anything to do with this," she spits. "We found you. We kept finding you." 

Darcy grins at her old boss. "Good job, Doc. I didn't know you had it in you."

"That's enough." Natasha turns her voice towards Jane, although her eyes never leave her target. "Dr Foster, are you satisfied with her answer?"

"She's got no reason to lie now." Jane grumps, crossing her arms over her chest. Gods, how Darcy misses her temper tantrums and explosive rants in the lab. Things were so much simpler then."We'll double-check, of course, but now I've got an idea of where to look for my findings it shouldn't be too hard to corroborrate her claims."

Nat's attention is back on Darcy. "Is there anyone you would like us to call for you?" The question takes Darcy by surprise with its gentleness. 

"Nope. I'd've said Jane, but...." Nat doesn't need a laser sight, but Darcy can almost feel a red light burning a hole in the front of her jacket. That's why the hot line of pain in her back and the smothering, stuttering burn of her collapsing lung is such a shock. Jane holds her up and slides the knife blade the rest of the way between her ribs and into her heart and Emma's final bow is a merciful drop into blackness.

"I thought you'd have more questions," Natasha remarks, lowering her pistol as Jane steps carefully away from the spreading pool of blood. The scientist takes a black-and-white-checked bandanna from her pocket and begins to wipe her hands. She's left the knife in Darcy's ribs.

"I couldn't....it was still her, you know?" Jane's voice shakes: this is her first kill, and the part of Natasha that is the Black Widow is proud of her swift and decisive action. The part of her that has since become Jane's friend aches that she's had to go through this. "You said she was just playing a part, but even with all those cosmetic changes and all this time, she was still Darcy." Jane glances up, her big brown eyes shining with unshed tears. "I'm sorry if I took her death away from you."

They have trained together for this for four years and by now Nat knows how much that apology costs her friend. Nat will get over this. She kneels down and draws the blade out of Darcy's back, using it to slice a lock of hair from the dead woman's scalp. On the plane back to New York, she will plait this into a narrow cord that will sit in the box of keepsakes by her bed in Stark Tower, wrapped around the fletched end of one of Clint's broken arrows from a long-ago mission. 

Jane begs off and Nat lets her escape out to the SUVs and Coulson's calm silence, while Nat herself wraps the body in a chemically-treated shroud and sets it alight. The shroud helps it burn quickly and almost oderlessly; she watches the body burn to ash, then scuffs her foot through the pile and scatters it. Clean sweep, she thinks to herself almost sadly, as she rejoins Coulson and Jane in the car and they start the long journey home.


End file.
